Girls being told they’re ‘too pretty to do math’ is degrading

June 17, 2026 — 7:30pm

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There is a T-shirt on sale at Myer right now. It is made by an Australian fashion house, Lioness, and across the front in casual script are printed six words: “I’m too pretty to do math” (sic).

I want you to sit with that for a moment.

I want to be clear about what a shirt like this actually does. This is not a joke. It is an identity statement. A girl doesn’t see it as ironic. She sees it modelled on someone who looks like the girls she compares herself with – maybe even aspires to be – sold in a store her parents take her to. She internalises the message, consciously or not, that this is an identity available to her. Pretty girls don’t do maths. Maybe that’s who I am.

It tells the girl wearing it, and everyone who reads it, that prettiness and mathematics are mutually exclusive. That if you are one, you cannot be the other. That who you are is a reason not to think. That if I want to be pretty, I can’t do maths.

It is, in short, one of the most corrosive stereotypes in education, printed on cotton and currently available at one of Australia’s most trusted department........

© Brisbane Times